


Space Giraffe

by Crimsonflight



Category: Cosmic Illumination, Original Work
Genre: Colonialism fucking sucks by the way so don't do it, Giraffes, Internal Monologue, POV First Person, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23311510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crimsonflight/pseuds/Crimsonflight
Summary: Some dweeb working for a space empire surveys an uninhabited planet, spends most of his time talking about space giraffes.Despite having no actual relation to the characters, it's technically set in the same universe as this quest: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/cosmic-illumination-jrpgesque-space-magic-academy.53183/
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Space Giraffe

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this solely because I needed an outlet for an episode of arbitrary, irrational anger that was overtaking me and preventing me from doing anything productive.

If you were to tell somebody to "neck themselves", then they would one hundred percent absolutely be offended. After all, you're telling them to go die in a hole or a ditch or whatever piece of idiomatic language butters your biscuit, and that's some serious bullshit language to use. If you were to tell it to a giraffe, on the other hand, then - well, they would still be offended, but at the same time they'd also be incredibly confused. Giraffes don't neck themselves, you see. To them, they're supposed to neck others. They whack their longass fucking necks right into another giraffe's - or at least the males do, I'm not particularly up on that take myself, but anyway - giraffes fucking try and murder each other with their necks either to establish dominance or impress some lady giraffe (which, according to a quick search, is called a "cow").

It's some wild shit. Also comical to behold. Like seriously, I get that giraffes are kinda top-heavy, but you'd think they wouldn't use their own necks as a weapon. If they break their necks they're gonna fucking die, you know? Like, if I were a giraffe, I'd try and rip a tree out of the ground and ram the other fucker with it. I mean it might be unwieldy and awkward, but hey, my long giraffe neck would be mostly safe from harm. Although I think most giraffes don't have the mouth and neck strength to grab a tree anyway. And actually I wouldn't even try to get in some dominance game with another giraffe in the first place. That shit's for losers.

You might be wondering why I'm thinking about giraffes.

I mean, there's no real reason why I shouldn't be thinking about giraffes. People are allowed to think whatever they want. Sometimes, you just get that brain fart and mine was all about giraffes. Or at least, that's what I'd say ... if I didn't actually have a reason to think about giraffes. Because right now, right here, on this beautiful savannah on some backwards ass planet in a system out in the middle of fucking nowhere (yeesh, the closest Imperial outpost is like, a kiloparsec away), I am hiding inside a real itchy bush, watching two giraffes attempt to murder each other with their necks. Well, I think they're supposed to be giraffes. They're kinda giraffe-looking and you know how some species keep randomly popping up all around the galaxy (like humans such as yours truly), though they could be giraffes that ... breathe fire or something. But if they're trying to kill each other by necking, then I think that flame breath idea is a total bust. Though it'd be pretty cool. Hey Divinities, if you eleven fuckers are listening, gimme a fire-breathing giraffe one day. I can ride it into battle and it'll be cool as fucking shit.

But I digress.

So here's the situation, because I definitely did not make it very clear earlier. I, Kang Tishtrya (or Tishtrya of Marakanda, if you wanna be a little spicy or whatever), have been sent to this planet to uhhh, survey whether or not it's suited for incorporation into the Empire. A little bit of that colonialism action. Or imperialism. You know, all for the glory and expansion of our beautiful, beloved nation and all that jazz, though I'm not sure if it's really colonialism or imperialism if there's like, no fucking sapients or mortals hanging around on this planet. Like yeah, I might be hanging out in a savannah which is vast as shit and not at all conducive to making friends, but when my ship jumped in I got no radio, no signs of settlements - I mean, if there's folk here they might not be sedentary which is fair enough, but I really hope there's nobody around but giraffes and some weirdass bird with five beaks because if we're legitimately doing an imperialism instead of uhhh, just adding an empty planet to our collection like you do with asteroids, then that adds a lot of moral considerations and treaties and shit that the bureaucrats really don't wanna deal with.

I mean, I wouldn't either. Imperialism fucking sucks, man.

Kinda weird for me to say that when I'm a proud servant of the Empire, a wandering hero whose mighty muscles and potent magicks serve the beck and call of our righteous King of Kings, but look, I actually really need that pension waiting for me at the end, and it's not like I've got much else going on besides being great at exploring random ass planets and going "hey boss, turns out this place would make a great tourist destination, it's got fucking giraffes and shit, let's annex it". I mean I could ditch this job and join up with the Commonwealth, but a jumped-up military alliance of fucking liberals probably do some sweet, sweet imperialism as well, except more quietly. I dunno, I was never great at my galactic geopolitics. I have no idea what their schtick actually is.

Anyway, so here I am, Kang Tishtrya, sitting in a bush in a savannah on the sole continent of an unnamed, hopefully uninhabited (by mortal sapients at least, because now that I think about it what if there's some world spirit here that we might end up pissing off - the Divinities would definitely not like that, and actually why do we treat regular ass animals as lesser in the first place or should I just ignore that ethical question in case the double-think behind my existence falls to pieces?) planet that might one day become part of an Imperial Satrapy, watching two giraffes try and murder each other for reasons unknown to me. Well, it's probably for dominance because I don't see any girl giraffes around.

Or maybe they have some fated rivalry or blood feud, that shit's everywhere these days. My man Suren right, I think he's gotten himself deep into one with a girl he used to work with. There was some drama there that boiled down to "shit's fucked", but I dunno the real specifics. I don't do that paladin shit.

The woes of my friends aside, I'm not an animal behavioural expert either, so I got no room to do that uhhh, psychoanalysis bullshit or whatever on two fucking giraffes. I mean they're total strangers to me, and not really classified as "sapient" which yeah honestly sounds sketchy now that I think about it. I mean like, I once met a talking komodo dragon right. Intelligent bloke. But like, what made him different to a non-talking komodo dragon? I mean he couldn't actually talk or understand them because he wasn't actually a komodo dragon he just looked like one, but what divides someone like me from someone like that ...

Arggghhh fuck it, this bush itches like hell.

Yeesh. Divinities help me man, what am I doing down here?

So like yeah, as I was saying. Me Tishtrya, me doing survey work for the Empire, me checking out this planet. I visited loads of other places (on the planet) earlier this week, found it kinda nice and inhabitable and pretty (you know, a world untouched by the hands of sedentary peoples, very cool), and today decided to drop my ship down in the savannah. My final port of call (discounting the ocean, which might have people living in there but uhhh, I can't actually swim that well and spaceships are generally not enchanted for those high pressure conditions), so I decided to pick a pretty comfortable biome. Nice amount of diversity on this planet's sole continent, actually, especially for such a small place. It's like ... uh, a fiftieth the mass of Jamshid's Throne? But hey, it's not really that much rarer to find worlds that the Divinities decided to put effort into crafting. But like, that aside right - I think this planet (I really need to give it a name at some point, but let's call it it Kang-83 for now) might actually work nice in the Empire. I mean, it'd be a nice place to do some tourism, check out the cool animals like ... oh damn that fucking giraffe is down. Neck slamming right into his neck. Fucker lost the plot there, other dude's basking in that victory glow (though not gonna lie, even though I'm no animal guy, he looks real fucking tired too).

Wait, where was I? Right, tourism.

Yeah so, I'd say this place might add a little economic power to whichever satrapy it gets assigned to. Pop down a spaceport or maybe a station in orbit if you don't wanna mess with the local scenery too much (because legit, spaceports are huge), and the magic happens. People sick of their daily doldrums can jump on a vessel out in the cosmic seas, rock up to Kang-83, and watch the giraffes fight each to the death. And uhhh, off the record, but maybe add some gambling opportunities too. Folks love betting on horses that get tortured for the sake of speed, so this brutal giraffe battle royale? Oh baby, the absolute moral void will bring in the big bucks.

Converting an entire planet into a gambling den is a bit sketchy, but hey, there aren't people around so at least it isn't colonialism.

I mean, I thought there were people here for a moment. That's why I jumped into this bush (which is seriously itchy and holy fuck is that a bug in my pants I gotta get this fucker outta here fuck -)

Ahem.

Bug's gone. Was some space beetle. Flicked right out of my underpants. To be specific, my boxer-briefs, because ...

Actually, underwear aside, I thought some native peoples found me for a moment, so I panicked and jumped into a bush. I mean, ideally I would be making contact, establishing a relationship, promising the Empire isn't here to do some "Unequal Treaties" (which I think we're a lot better at doing than way back in the past, though the Throne's at least been pretty cosmopolitan since its founding over a thousand years back), but I'm pretty aware of my own personal flaws, and one of those flaws is possibly being too impulsive. Like the "jumping into an itchy bush immediately upon hearing whatever sounded like footsteps in the savannah" type of impulsive. But it's better than me maybe accidentally running my mouth and starting a diplomatic incident, so it makes sense I wouldn't wanna start this kinda thing on a surprised footing or whatever. I'd wanna go back to my ship, do some rehearsals, that kinda thing first.

Also so I can pray for a language blessing. Divinities need to have my back. I'm not a confident guy, you know?

So there I was, checking out the area, admiring the animals, and then bam, I heard something behind me. So I jumped into the closest bush, and it turned out that rather than some people, it was just those giraffes doing a running battle in my direction. Which actually, now that I think about it, means it was a good idea for me to get down and dirty in some greens in the first place. Otherwise, I might've been trampled to death instead of being a witness to giraffe necking! That would've been humiliating, like seriously. Think of my funeral: "Here lies Tishtrya, he never scored (I can own up to that) and he was killed by giraffes". And Suren would be crying or maybe vowing vengeance on some giraffes on some random ass planet (this one, Kang-83), I dunno. He's an emotional guy.

I would rather die for something like my ideals. Not that I think my ideals are too great, but at least it makes me sound more the storybook hero.

That aside, I don't think I have much more reason to sit in a fucking bush. My ass hurts like hell - well okay, that's an exaggeration, but my ass seriously itches man. Also the giraffes are done fighting and that one loser is just like, lying there and ... he's probably alive but I should apply some potion to him just in case. Keep my conscience clean, even if that's a lost cause by this point. Besides, if I'm gonna be turning Kang-83 into the newest territory of the Empire, then it falls to me that I protect the inhabitants, right?

I mean yeah, it's a giraffe. But hey, animal cruelty fucking sucks too.

Loser giraffe (who I'm now calling uhhh, Rakhsh - yeah I know giraffes aren't horses but they both got four legs and I don't have any better ideas okay?) doesn't see me approach, probably because he's staring off at the victor of his little bout (who I will not deign with a name, because I'm rooting for the underdog ... uhhh, undergiraffe here). Which does make things easier for me, because I can just pull the potion out, empty a bit into my hands, and bam, a little bit of slip, slop, slap onto bruised bits on his neck, and there, rapid healing is a-go. And I can leave without any more fuss in my life, because I think I've surveyed this savannah just fine.

Hey, it's not like my boss is gonna rake me over the coals too hard if I don't. I just need to shit out a nice, fancy report.

Anyway, I should head back to the ship.

After that bush, I really need some aircon on my ass.

Kang Tishtrya, signing out.


End file.
